suppressed sun production during the forced "Streak-Breaker" losses in Battlez ?

Has anyone noticed suppressed sun production during the forced "Streak-Breaker" losses in Battlez ?

I haven't actually tracked sun production and analyzed it statistically, but I just had a loss (game number 7 in a streak), where my sun plants were hardly producing anything, and there was a noticeable 5 or 6 second period where no suns fell and my plants didn't produce any sun. I was out of sun and couldn't lay down any plants, I couldn't replace plants killed by thrown imps, and I was basically wiped out.

Its pretty odd for me to run out of sun because I make sure I have enough sun producing plants. In the previous 6 games I ended the game with 75 to 125 left and was not having problems laying down plants. Also, it wasn't like my sun-producing plants got wiped out - they were on the board, they just weren't doing anything.

Re: suppressed sun production during the forced "Streak-Breaker" losse

I've had many instances this week (Starfruit) where it takes anywhere up to 30 seconds into the match before I get sun from any source.

This means I have to survive with only my pre-planted damage dealers. (Plus deploying Spearmint to help out until the sun finally starts to come in.)

I commence each match with 5 Laser Beans, 5 Starfruit, and 13 Moonflowers. That leaves me with zero sun.

Having 13 Moonflowers at the outset normally gives me more than adequate sun within 10 to 15 seconds to commence a major buildup of plants. In fact, the limiting factor is usually waiting for the relevant plants to refresh.

When I get that 'Sun Starvation' at the start, I KNOW I'm in for a struggle. I also KNOW I'm fighting a Bot as this is almost always accompanied by the classic sudden jumps in the opponent's score. This is then confirmed at the end of the match when I see there was NO WAY the opponent's plants could get anywhere near to their scores.

Fortunately my plants are now sufficiently high powered to overcome many of these attempted 'Streak-Breaker' losses by staging a 'big finish' in the final few seconds, but I'm still not immune to them.

When I get an 'opponent' with plant selections that make no logical sense and at levels far below mine scoring over 4 million points, you KNOW you've been shafted by EA/Popcap.

Re: suppressed sun production during the forced "Streak-Breaker" losse

For potentially streak breaking matches, I kinda feel that but rarely see a bot when the match ends. In addition to sun-starvation, zombie-starvation (no zombies to kill, lower score) is also a problem.

Re: suppressed sun production during the forced "Streak-Breaker" losse

It is difficult to keep track of sun production and play the game at the same time, but I have kept track of scores. I know that EA cheats me with forced losses, I'll have 5 or 6 wins where my score is about average, then I'll have a loss where my score is something like 15 to 25 standard deviations below the mean. After that forced loss, I'll have 5 or 6 more games where my scores falls within 1 standard deviation.

I have been beaten by players who either have better strategies or have higher level plants. During those losses, my score is usually about average, they just have a higher score.

I've experienced "zombie starvation", I didn't know sun starvation was a thing. So other people have experienced this then ?

Re: suppressed sun production during the forced "Streak-Breaker" losse

I've had many instances this week (Starfruit) where it takes anywhere up to 30 seconds into the match before I get sun from any source.

This means I have to survive with only my pre-planted damage dealers. (Plus deploying Spearmint to help out until the sun finally starts to come in.)

I commence each match with 5 Laser Beans, 5 Starfruit, and 13 Moonflowers. That leaves me with zero sun.

Having 13 Moonflowers at the outset normally gives me more than adequate sun within 10 to 15 seconds to commence a major buildup of plants. In fact, the limiting factor is usually waiting for the relevant plants to refresh.

When I get that 'Sun Starvation' at the start, I KNOW I'm in for a struggle. I also KNOW I'm fighting a Bot as this is almost always accompanied by the classic sudden jumps in the opponent's score. This is then confirmed at the end of the match when I see there was NO WAY the opponent's plants could get anywhere near to their scores.

Fortunately my plants are now sufficiently high powered to overcome many of these attempted 'Streak-Breaker' losses by staging a 'big finish' in the final few seconds, but I'm still not immune to them.

When I get an 'opponent' with plant selections that make no logical sense and at levels far below mine scoring over 4 million points, you KNOW you've been shafted by EA/Popcap.

Re: suppressed sun production during the forced "Streak-Breaker" losse

I have experienced both conditions as well. Even noticed Humplemann's game start condition but thankfully never for 30 seconds ! Just long enough for me to notice it and begin to wonder what is going on...

Guess the prevailing strategy to survive SUN starvation might be to build up lots of extra SUN early in every battle in order to survive this condition near the end.

Zombie starvation is just downright annoying !! I wonder if playing at Turbo mode afecds Zombie stavation ?

Re: suppressed sun production during the forced "Streak-Breaker" losse

I have been using a lot of Moonflowers and surrounding them with other shadow plants. When a squid lands on one of them, the damage-dealing plants behind the squid-covered Moonflower quickly make sushi out of the squid.

But all of the strategizing is for naught if the Moonflowers don't produce sun due to whatever underlying computer code is in play when EA is trying to f their customers over with a forced loss. And BTW... I've never experienced this in other parts of the game. I've never experienced this in Adventure, Inzanity or anywhere else in the game. While I cannot predict exactly how much sun will be produced by a particular plant at any given time, over the course of 2 minutes, it pretty much evens out. In 6 out of 7 games, I'm able to replace plants that have been killed by imps but in the streak-breaker games, I'm just stuck waiting for sun while the zombies destroy everything on the board.

Like Humplemann said, when I experience 'Sun Starvation' it always turns out that I was fighting a Bot - high opponent scores that are at odds with the low level plants in nonsensical plant combinations, y'know - the tell tale signs that it is an EA artificial loss.

This is what pisses me off about EA, and why I put PVZ2 down and go for long stretches without playing it... They're just f-ing with the parameters of the game to artificially force you to lose. I don't mind being beaten by a real opponent who just outplayed me, but knowing that EA is running code that just stops zombies from appearing on the field and just flat out stops suns from falling and flat out stops my sun plants from producing suns in order to make me lose, I think that violates anyone's sense of fairness.

Re: suppressed sun production during the forced "Streak-Breaker" losse

Once my sun production has finally kicked in I'm able to build up my plants pretty quickly, but those 30'ish seconds obviously mean my strategy takes longer to kick in at full strength. It also means I have to use a Spear-mint before I would normally.

My usual play in the first segment is to plant a further five Laser Beans and four Starfruits. Once they're all in place I use my first Spearmint.

As soon as I realize I'm under 'Sun starvation' conditions I immediately deploy a Spearmint, but that means I have to space out further deployments so I have at least two lots of Plant food in hand for the final few seconds.

I run with Power Lily + imitated Lily. That way I can usually keep my Laser Beans powered up virtually all through the match following the first deployment.

When I don't get the early sun, I need to have several periods of a few seconds each without the Spear-mint power-up in constant action so I'll still have two lots of Plant Food ready for the final few seconds to boost a couple of Laser Beans that have Gargantuars in their lanes to get the high scores from them. That spacing out has a side effect of slowing my scoring rate. The marginally slower rate of scoring in those few seconds each time wouldn't normally be a problem, but when I'm up against a Bot it could prove costly if I don't keep tight control over the spacing out of the Spear-mint deployments to minimize the effects.

If I receive normal sun in the first few seconds, I find this week's tournament pretty good and easy to keep on top of. Without that early sun, things can get rather fraught and even the slightest misjudgement in timing can make the difference between surviving the streak-breaker or losing.

I'm guessing that someone 'in certain quarters' has worked out that many players can now defeat the Bots, so they've introduced another sneaky tactic that makes it that much harder for us.